


Finding Himself

by autisticblueteam



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Character(s), Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autisticblueteam/pseuds/autisticblueteam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Washington is autistic, and being part of a top secret military project doesn’t change that.</p><p>A look at Washington through PFL to Chorus, through the context of my Autistic headcanon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, it turns out I relate to this guy so much that I’ve written so much for him that I have to split it in half for readability. It doesn’t help that he has a lot more in-show content, of course, but y’know.
> 
> This chapter covers Wash from his first day at PFL through to when he meets the Reds and Blues for the first time. Warnings just for the fact Wash has meltdowns, and he’s very self-destructive during them.
> 
> (p.s.: I've included translations for all sign language used [here on my tumblr](http://autisticblueteam.tumblr.com/private/135015558212/tumblr_nz80g6ZXw81umch04))

Washington walked through the unfamiliar halls of the Mother of Invention with his bag slung of his shoulder, looking around for any signs to point him in the right direction. Tugging at his cheek with his teeth he sighed; he was already regretting his decision to turn down a guide to his room. It was too late now, however. He’d just have to find it on his own.

He came to a stop at an interactive sign that was displaying a map, scratching his head and biting at his cheek more when he realised it didn’t even tell him where he was. This ship was  _huge_ , and he hadn’t seen a sign telling him the name of the area he was in for at least ten minutes. He didn’t stand a chance trying to figure out his position.

With a sigh he turned around to keep looking, only to jump back against the wall when he came face to face with one of the white-clad soldiers that seemed to be everywhere on the ship.

“Hey!” The solider said, “You looking for something kid?”

Wash swallowed the lump in his throat, letting his breathing even out before speaking, “U-Uh… Yeah, um. The Freelancers’ quarters…? I’m, um, new.”

“No kidding,” The soldier shook their head, patting Washington on the shoulder and pulling him away from the wall. Wash tensed, but didn’t resist, “Alright, follow me kid.”

As the soldier went ahead of him Washington shuddered a little, adjusting his bag on his shoulder and biting down on his lip. He followed after him, jogging slightly at first to catch up, as he walked down the direction Washington had already been headed and then took a left. On the wall Washington saw a sign saying ‘Freelancer Bunks [1]’. He hadn’t been far off at all.

“Alright kid, you got a room number?”

Wash fumbled to get out his data-pad, pulling up the information as he felt the soldier’s gaze burning into the side of his head impatiently. He coughed, nodding as he found it, “Um, room four?”

The soldier let out a whistle, chuckling, “Oh boy. You’re with the big guy, huh?”

“The… the big guy?” Washington said, swallowing another lump that had appeared in his throat and raising an eyebrow slightly in an attempt to look more confused than nervous, “What do you mean?”

“Oh you’ll see. Have fun!” And with a slap on the back that made Washington groan and shudder, the soldier left.

Washington cursed under his breath, digging his nails hard into his palm and trying to level his heart rate. He’d felt nervous enough as it was without that added cryptic commentary. That soldier had to be the least helpful person ever, of all time.

With a deep sigh and his nails still embedded into his palm he made his way down to the fourth door, standing in front of the heavy metal and looking at the sign reading ‘Agent Maine | Agent Washington’ that was attached to it. So that was ‘the big guy’, Agent Maine. He swallowed hard.

He typed the code he had on his data-pad into the lock system, jumping a little at the sound of it unlocking and cursing himself internally after the fact. Then with a deep breath he slid the door open, stepping inside and looking around the sparsely furnished room. It didn’t seem to be any better or any worse than other military barracks he’d stayed in, and the familiarity made him relax just for a moment. Until his eyes were drawn to the figure on the other bed.

‘Big guy’ didn’t even begin to cover it, that guy had to be over six and a half feet tall.

Maine was looking at him, one thick black eyebrow raised as he glanced up from a data-pad. However he made no move to get up, just sitting there watching him.

Washington gulped, “Uh, hi! Maine, right?”

Maine nodded.

Washington felt like he was going to sink through the floor.

“I’m uh, D− I mean, Washington,” Why was he still speaking? This was so awkward, “But you uh, know that. I mean, if I wasn’t that’d be pretty awkward. Since I just walked into your room and all.”

Maine raised a brow again, the corner of his lips twitching.

“Uh, anyway,” Washington said, coughing and dropping his eyes to the floor as he made his way over to the empty bed and dumped his bag. He could feel the large man’s eyes on his back even as he undid his pack and began to take stuff out, all the time wondering why the universe hated him. A soldier with talents notable enough to get him out of a court-martial and into a magic bullet program he may be, but that guy must have similar talents, and that guy could  _probably_  snap him in half like a toothpick if he so fancied. Hell, that was probably his talent!

Washington took a deep breath, shaking his head and trying just to focus on unpacking his simple belongings. He laid the pile of standard-issue t-shirts he’d been given in his new colours out on the bed in neat stacks, followed by the similarly standard sweats and one PFL formal uniform for ‘whenever the need made arise’. Then he began work on his actual personal belongings.

“Need help?”

Washington practically squawked.

A low, rumbling chuckle came from behind him and Washington turned around to see Maine standing a couple of feet away, massive arms folded loosely over his massive chest and looking down at him with an… amused look on his face.

“Sorry.”

“Uh, n-not at all,” Wash said, biting his tongue instead of his lip and cursing. Maine tilted his head, “Um, I mean. I guess help would be good? I um, where does this stuff go?”

Maine untucked one arm, gesturing at the storage unit in the wall between their beds from the main doors to the bottom drawers one by one, “Formal. Underwear. T-shirts. Slacks. Colour coded, so share. ‘Cept underwear.”

Washington nodded, gathering up his stuff and moving it to the places Maine had pointed out. His formal uniform looked like it could belong to a child’s next to Maine’s, and his dark grey shirts were a contrast to Maine’s own white shirts. Maine watched the whole time, even helping him hang the formal uniform up on the rail that was clearly pushed higher with him in mind.

“Uh, thanks,” Washington said, scratching the back of his head, “It’s just little personal things now.”

Maine nodded, taking a seat on the edge of his bed and watching Washington go back to sit on his. The smaller man could still feel Maine’s eyes on him, but it wasn’t  _quite_  as unnerving as before, so he sat mostly comfortably on his bed as he sorted through the various bits and pieces he’d brought with him.

“Some can go in your locker,” Maine said after a minute or two of silence, “Some on bedside,” He added, gesturing to the shelf attached to the wall by Washington’s bed.

Washington nodded, dividing his belongings into a couple of piles and arranging those he’d chosen on the bedside shelf when he was done. A photo of a pair of cats; a couple of silicone chewing aids shaped like a cat and a tank; his dog tags; and his data-pad, just the bits that fit. The rest he dumped on the floor by his bed to move later.

“Not shared a room before?” Maine asked.

Washington shrugged, “Not really, no,” He chuckled awkwardly, “That obvious huh?”

Maine shrugged, nodding his head side to side with a smile on his face. Washington chuckled awkwardly again, scratching the back of his head.

“From Earth?”

“Huh?” He looked up, holding his ankles where his legs now crossed, “Um, no. I’m from one of the outer colonies. Never set foot on Earth. Uh, you?” That was how you continued conversations, right? Asking the same back?

Maine shrugged, “Same.”

“Oh, cool. Um,” He began rocking back and forth where he sat cross-legged, feeling himself begin to relax a little, “You been here long?”

Maine shrugged again, “Year-ish.”

“Uh, the others okay?”

This time Maine didn’t reply aloud, just shrugging and nodding his head from side to side.

“Mixed bag, huh?”

Maine grinned, nodding.

Washington heard the chuckle that slipped out before he made the decision to laugh, still rocking backwards and forwards, “Fair enough.”

They asked a few more questions back and forth over the course of an hour or so, with Maine seeming to be perfectly fine with Wash not always wanting to answer and leaving plenty of pauses to let Wash drop the conversation if he so chose to. He didn’t seemed bothered by Washington’s repetitive rocking, and when – much to his own embarrassment – Wash let out a cat-like sound instead of a laugh he did little more than chuckle. There were no harsh comments to be heard.

Washington felt much less nervous than when he’d first walked in, and was cursing himself for judging too quickly. No, Maine seemed alright and much less scary than he’d first seemed. He figured this could work, sharing with Maine wouldn’t be the end of the world.

* * *

Washington was still firing as he backed into the Pelican, the last of his teammates having just run in behind him and North where they had remained on the ramp, shooting into the group of pursuing Insurrectionists. The sound of blaring sirens and continuous gunfire were a dull ringing in his ears which was all but cut off completely when the ramp closed up behind them moments later and the Pelican rose off the ground.

Well, for one of his first missions it certainly hadn’t been dull.

He slung his gun onto his back and pulled off his helmet, flinching slightly at the sudden volume as his noise-cancelling software was removed. He groaned, chewing the inside of his cheek and looking around the Pelican for the hulking, white mass that was Maine, only to see that the seats by him had already been claimed. With a sigh he instead took one opposite him, dumping his helmet at his feet.

Maine, still wearing his fishbowl-like helmet, tilted his head. Wash shrugged a little, pointing at his ear with his right hand and then shaking his hands at shoulder level. Maine nodded, holding his hand near his forehead with his index finger touching his thumb, the former of which he then flicked to stand up straight. Wash smiled.

And then he jumped at the sound of a helmet slamming into a seat.

“Fucking  _seriously_ , York? Fucking seriously?!” South snapped, gritting her teeth and getting up in the taller agent’s face, “Some fucking infiltration specialist you fucking are, you stupid cocksucker! How did you manage to set off  _every single fucking alarm in the fucking complex_?!”

York stared right back at her, “Because ‘every single fucking alarm in the fucking complex’ happened to be triggered by that  _one_  wrong move I made,  _South_. Hardly something I could have avoided.”

“How about now making that ‘ _one_  wrong move’?!” She said, adding quotation marks with her fingers, “Pretty sure that’d have fucking avoided it!”

North was the first to speak up, “South, calm down. South, really. What’s done is done.”

South snorted, shoving York away with a fist against his chest-plate and storming towards the seat her helmet had hit. She was making all sorts of gestures that even Washington, fully aware he was no body language master, could tell were movements of pure anger, “Yeah, what’s  _done_  is  _done_ , and I’ve got several fucking bullet wounds clogged up with Biofoam because of it! Forgive me if I’m fucking pissed off!”

York rolled his eyes, “Well if you’d set your trackers like North kept  _telling_  you to then maybe that guy wouldn’t have gotten close enough on the way out to put a bullet in your side!”

Wash’s eyes widened, mouthing a silent ‘ohhh shit’. Maine shrugged, bobbing his head side to side in what Wash took as some kind of agreement. North cleared his throat awkwardly.

South had stopped flailing around to express her anger, her fists clenched and a look on her face that Wash could only read as ‘murder’.

“Oh I oughtta− Hey!” She started, before being dragged into her seat by Connie, who only sighed and took a seat next to her. South pouted.

Wash looked back to Maine, chewing his cheek as the tense atmosphere grew, and raised his hands to sign something across to him. Then someone dropped into the seat next to him and he jumped, barely suppressing a repeat of the embarrassing squawking from his first day. He heard the faint sound of Maine’s chuckle from across the bay, and stuck his middle finger up at him as discreetly as he could manage.

“Everyone calm down. North is right; what’s done is done. We still succeeded in our objective,” The person said, followed by two less than happy sounding ‘yes ma’am’s from York and South. A sigh came from beside him then, and he could see the figure slump back in their seat out of the corner of his eye.

As the bay descended into a low level of chatter that, if anything, made the atmosphere somehow tenser, Wash started chewing at his cheek once again. He looked back at Maine, only to see his view had been blocked by York who was leaning against the harness of the next seat over to talk to North. He sighed, grabbing his helmet from the floor and tugging it back on. He turned the noise cancelling software down, but it offered a little extra protection from the tenseness.

With talking to Maine out of the question he instead found himself looking at the woman sat next to him out of the corner of his eye. Now that he was looking he recognised her, she number one on the board: Agent Carolina. The one who had been leading their mission today, as he found out she does for every group mission. Probably why South and York listened to her, he figured.

He tried not to stare, he really did, but as he went to look away after deciphering the mystery of who she was he noticed that she was chewing on her lip. She was chewing on it quite violently, in fact; he wouldn’t be at all surprised if it had split and started bleeding right there as he watched. Becoming very aware of his own chewing at his cheek he found it reminded him of himself a little, remembering all the times he’d chewed too hard and managed to get blood in his mouth.

And then she went to stand up, and his brain decided that was the perfect time to start up a casual conversation.

“So, uh. They always like this, huh?”

Damn you, brain.

Carolina looked at him for a moment, avoiding his eyes he noticed, and then sat back down, “Mostly, yes. We rarely all see eye to eye.”

Wash chuckled awkwardly, internally cursing himself and raising a hand behind his head, only realising when his fingers hit his helmet that he couldn’t scratch his head with it on. Shit, “No kidding. Guess I’ll get used to it soon enough?”

“You’ll fit right in. You know Maine already, don’t you?” She asked, her head tilting slightly.

“Oh? Uh, yeah. I do. North and York have been friendly so far too. I think,” He shrugged. Well, he was pretty sure they had been, but he was never quite sure about these things. Then Carolina raised her eyebrow, and he felt himself backtrack instantly, “I mean, they have been!”

The eyebrow didn’t drop, “Uh-huh.”

Oh this was going absolutely terribly.

He was almost grateful when South and York started arguing again, causing Carolina to get up and go to deal with them. He noticed as she got up that she bit down on her lip one more time, which was apparently one time too many as it split and blood dripped down onto her aqua armour.

And he had an idea.

She didn’t come back to the seat beside him after that, so he sat for the next two hours mostly in silence and buzzing with nervousness and excitement at the same time. He sat on his hands to stop himself from flapping in front of the others and settled for rocking back and forth slightly.

When the Pelican finally landed in the MOI’s main hangar he practically jumped from his seat, earning him a few glances that he ignored in favour of going to Maine and all but tugging him from the ship as the bay door opened. He heard the now familiar rumbling chuckle as he did so, leading him towards the locker room to get out of their armour well ahead of the others who hung back and chatted as they walked.

Wash almost fell over several times whilst getting out of his armour, throwing Maine another playful middle finger when he laughed. When he was rid of his armour and instead clad in the, admittedly rather comfortable, standard t-shirt and sweats he’d stashed in his locker to change into he stood waiting impatiently for Maine to finish.

“Come on!” He whined, folding his arms and giving Maine the most intimidating look he could currently manage. Maine just chuckled again, pulling the last pieces of his armour off with just as little speed and just as much care as he had the rest.

Wash started stepping back and forth on the spot after a minute more of this, and Maine did speed up after that. He pulled off his under-suit quickly and tugged on his own regulation shirt and sweats, waving a hand to tell Wash to lead the way and following behind him as Wash groaned out a ‘finally!’ and started them back towards their quarters.

When they reached their door Wash punched in the code wrong three times before Maine took over, still letting Wash go in ahead of him and watching curiously as he ran straight over to his bedside shelf and cursed.

“Dammit, where did I have it last?”

Maine grunted, “What?”

“The tank one. My cat chew is here but the tank one isn’t,” Wash said, groaning and turning to his bed. He threw back the covers and ran his hands over the sheets to feel for it, and then groaned again and stomped over to the storage unit to check there.

Maine shook his head, walking over to help him search.

Forty five minutes later they found it: underneath Wash’s bed.

“…I have no idea how that ended up under there, but okay?” Wash said, scratching his head as he took it from Maine. Maine shrugged, “Okay, now to wash it!”

Maine raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

Wash didn’t answer the unspoken question, instead dashing straight to the en-suite bathroom and running the hot tap into the sink until it was full. Then, flinching slightly from the heat, he soaked the chew in the hot water for a while before giving it a quick scrub with some soap and then repeating the soaking process. Usually he’d put it in boiling water for a couple of minutes, but he couldn’t really do that here.

When it was done he dried it off carefully and ran out of the bathroom, and then with little more than a ‘be right back!’ to Maine he dashed out of the room.

The nervousness returned to him as he approached room number one, his teeth starting to tug at his cheek again. When he reached the door his mind had given him practically every way this could go wrong, and he was shuffling on his feet as he debated if he should even bother going through with this. Eventually he convinced himself to say fuck it and just do it, so he knocked the door.

After the longest ten seconds of his life, the door slammed open to reveal a very, very annoyed Agent Carolina.

Wash gulped.

“Uh, hi.”

Her stance relaxed, her face became confused rather than angry, “Oh, Washington. Sorry, I assumed it was someone else.”

Wash swallowed the lump in his throat, “Oh, no no, it’s fine. Sorry to interrupt you, I just, uh,” He shuffled on the spot, scratching the back of his head and wondering again if he should even bother, before thrusting the hand that held the chew towards her, “I thought you could use this.”

She looked towards the hand, and Washington was pretty sure he was going to melt into a puddle from nerves.

“Washington, I−”

“I disinfected it, don’t worry. None of my, uh, germs on it or anything,” Oh god, he interrupted her. He hadn’t meant to interrupt her, “But I have another one of these. And I saw what you did to your lip? So. I figured you could use it.”

The pause that followed may rank with the most awkward moments of Wash’s life up until this point. Then she turned her hand over, and Wash barely suppressed a sigh of relief as he dropped it into her hand.

“Thank you, Washington,” She was smiling, looking up at him with a nod, “I appreciate it,”

“You’re uh, you’re welcome,” Wash said, feeling a lot of the tension leaving him. He even caught himself starting to wiggle where he stood, sending a positive buzz through him for a brief moment until he stopped himself and coughed, “See you around then, uh, Boss.”

She chuckled, “See you around then, Washington.”

Wash turned on his heel and ran back towards room four without a moments pause, muttering under his breath: “ _Oh my god I did it._ ”

When he got back to the room Maine was waiting with his arms folded and his eyebrow raised near the door. Wash chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

“Uh, I was giving it to Carolina. She bust her lip chewing it. Figured it could help,” He said, feeling himself start to wiggle again. This time he didn’t stop himself; Maine had already heard him making cat noises by now, the wiggling was no more embarrassing than that.

Maine chuckled, pointing at Wash and cupping his hands in the air in front of him, miming kissing them. Wash went red.

“I am not a kissass!”

Maine doubled over with all but silent laughter, his shoulders shaking and the odd chuckle breaking out as Wash folded his arms in an attempt to look appropriately offended. However within seconds the façade broke down, and Wash was laughing along with him, covering his mouth and shoving Maine’s shoulder.

* * *

Wash felt the car slamming into him before he saw it, gasping sharply as the wind was knocked out of him and he felt something crack beneath his armour. The next thing he felt was his head slamming into the wall, shortly followed by the rest of his body, as he heard something else crack.

He groaned, shakily pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and trying to find his gun. He could feel the pain blossoming in his ribcage with the intensity of an injury ten times its severity, hissing sharply as his armour tried to compensate for the impact. But that was the only pain that stood out, what was that second crack?

When he opened his eyes the answer was clear: his visor had been cracked, slammed against the wall and now with web-like fracture radiating out from the contact point. The top corner had completely fallen out, leaving part of one eye open to the elements. He cursed.

The damage to his helmet made his noise cancelling software almost useless, which turned out to be an advantage as he heard the sound of the Warthog revving up for another hit much sooner than he would have otherwise. He groaned, gritting his teeth and grabbing something from his armour and throwing it at the Warthog, waiting for the metallic thud before pressing down on a button.

“What the fuck is−” The insurrectionist driver began to say, before the beeping started, “Oh son of a−!”

Washington’s arm flew up to shield his face from the explosion, biting his tongue as the sound rocked his every nerve and the bright light seared his eyes, blinding him as a shudder of agony ran through him. His visor couldn’t protect him, broken the way it was; his HUD was barely functioning and the crack nullified any shielding it could offer. He felt like his eyes were on fire, gasping and stumbling back into the wall.

His whole body was shaking. His ears were ringing from the shockwave and the sheer volume of the explosion, and debris was still clattering to the ground. His eyes hadn’t recovered, he was sure there were open but he just couldn’t see. They burned. His head burned. Adrenaline pumped through him and the pain in his ribs got worse.

It hurt so much. Oh god it all hurt so much. Command. He had to call command. They could get him out of here.

Oh god it hurt so much.

He raised a shaking hand to his radio, gasping for air to try and level himself out, swallowing hard and speaking with a trembling voice, “C-Command t-this is Agent… A-Agent Washington. M-Mission failed. N-need e-evac, stat.”

He slumped against the wall, falling gracelessly to the floor with another sharp gasp. If there was a response he didn’t hear it. All he could hear was ringing in his ears and the shaky sound of his own breathing amplified a hundred times over. He clamped his eyes shut, hissing through grinding teeth.

Contain it. Contain it. Snap out of it. Don’t lose yourself completely. Don’t let it win.

It just all hurt  _so much_.

His helmet felt suddenly constricting, his hands fumbling with the clasps and throwing it off. Hot air hit his skin like a wave, burning his throat as he took heavy uneven breaths. His fists clenched against the floor, kevlar covered finger digging into kevlar covered palms and slamming against the concrete floor and radiating pain up his arms in a vain effort to keep his hands off of himself. But it wasn’t long before the feeling of the concrete slamming against his knuckles wasn’t enough and his hands began to slam against his legs.

Focus on that. Focus on that pain. Don’t focus on the burning light or the noise or the broken rib you most likely have focus on the thudding of your hands against your legs. Oh god it hurt so much. It all  _hurt_  so  _much_.

There was blood in his mouth before he even registered that he’d bitten his cheek again. There was blood running down the side of his face from where the shard of his visor had dug into his temple. There was sweat coating his face and sticking his hair to his forehead. He could feel the tears stinging his eyes. He was a mess. He was going to fucking die. He felt like he was going to fucking die.

Time was a blur. How long ago had he made the call to command? How long would it take them to send evac? How far away had 479er gotten? Had she come back but he wasn’t answering their communications so had left again?

His teeth bit harder at his cheek, more blood filling his mouth. No. Stop thinking. Thinking hurt.

He clamped his eyes shut tighter; sucking in air through gnashed teeth; slamming his hands into his legs. Over and over and over and over. One shot of pain after another. Over and over and over and over and−

The next thing he was aware of was the sound of screams. For a moment he wondered if they were his own, but with his teeth still pressed tightly together they couldn’t have been. Not that clear. But still he dismissed it. Everything still hurt. Everything still  _hurt_.

Then he was aware of the sound of metal creaking and cracking, coming from the direction of the compound’s rear doors. The doors he’d come through to get into this area. At least, he  _thinks_  that’s right. Is it? His thoughts are too shaken, too disjointed, to be sure.

And then finally he was aware of a low rumbling noise, a familiar noise. Not a chuckle this time but a low growl, and a body hovering over him before there was a presence at his side.

He wanted to acknowledge him, but his jaw wouldn’t unclench.

Then there was silence. He could tell Maine was still there, but he didn’t say a thing or reach out to touch him. Washington focused on that. He focused on the presence beside him, huge yet unobtrusive, and slowly felt himself come back up to earth from the fiery pits of meltdown.

His jaw remained clenched, but his eyes fluttered open. He hissed in pain at the light, but he forced himself to look at Maine, a giant in white and splattered with red. Probably the cause of those screams, he figured. Huh.

Maine grunted, head tilted forward and his two index fingers pointing inwards at chest level and twisting in opposite directions. Wash nodded. Maine dropped one hand, holding the other up with index finger still extended and shaking shaking said finger back and forth. Wash repeated the first sign Maine had used over his ribs, after forcing his fists to unclench. Maine nodded, and stopped signing for a moment.

Then he tilted his head again, pointing at Wash’s chest and then moving his hands, laid flat in the air, in opposite back and forth motions. Wash grunted, shaking his head. To that Maine just nodded, standing up and disappearing out of Wash’s sight for a few seconds.

When he returned he was holding Wash’s broken helmet in his hand. Then he crouched down, carefully hooking one large arm under Wash’s back and the other under his knees. Just as carefully he stood up, holding the other soldier to his chest.

Washington shuddered slightly at the contact, gritting his teeth through the lingering shot of pain it sent through him, but then focused on simply levelling himself back out. He could already feel the pain growing in the back of his skull, the leftovers of the meltdown as it slowly passed. His ribs were still throbbing, a pain which itself only got worse as Maine started moving back through the compound and back towards the entrance.

He was graciously silent, not unusual for Maine of course but welcomed all the same. Wash rested his head against the large shoulder nearest to it, closing his eyes and keeping his teeth firmly together to stop any sounds of pain escaping. They’d be back on the Pelican soon enough, back to the MOI soon enough. They could dose him up with pain medication there, knock him out for a few hours until the aching had mostly faded. That sounded pretty good, right about now.

The silence was finally disrupted when they reached the front of the compound, the engines of the awaiting Pelican destroying the quiet instantly. Wash groaned lightly at the disturbance, bringing his hands up to cover his ears as Maine took them both inside and the door shut behind them. It was a little quieter inside than outside, so the hands dropped again.

“How bad is he?” Niner’s voice came from up front, accompanied by the sensation of the ship lifting off the ground.

Maine grunted, slipping Wash into a seat, “Ribs.”

“So basically pretty standard?”

Maine grunted again, glancing to Wash and touching a finger to his helmet, flicking it to point in Niner’s general direction. Wash shrugged, leaning back in his seat and trying to get as comfortable as he could with broken ribs. He didn’t have the energy to care what anyone thought of him right now.

“Meltdown,” Maine said, kneeling by Wash and pulling off his helmet.

“Ah, gotcha. Don’t worry kid, I’ve had Carolina in the back of my bird many a time. Started inviting her up front when the others made her all stressed,” Niner said. Wash just nodded vaguely, looking at Maine.

Maine hovered his flat right hand in front of his mouth, then moving it away to the side into a fist with a loose thumb. Wash shrugged, wiggling his hand from side to side. He’d been better, but he’d been worse not long ago.

Maine nodded, placing Wash’s helmet on the next seat over along with his own. Then he carefully helped Wash remove his armoured gloves and his chest place, giving him a little more freedom and reducing the pressure on his injury. He raised his hand to his lips and moved it down in a curve at Maine, idly reaching out afterwards and patting his head. Maine chuckled quietly at that.

Washington found himself managing a small smile in return, starting to drop his hand off of Maine’s head but stopping as the prickly remains of his shaven hair brushed against his palm. Somewhat unconsciously he repeated the motion in reverse, finding the prickly sensation oddly relaxing. It sent a calming feeling through him that was familiar, making his muscles relax and his brain feel a little less scrambled. So he rubbed his hand around the top of Maine’s head in gradual circles, and Maine just sat there perfectly content.

He stayed there for the rest of the flight without a word of protest.

Wash felt a lot better when they got back.

* * *

The second Pelican had arrived back nearly an hour after Washington and Niner had returned with the Sarcophagus, and it was an understatement to say he’d been getting worried about the rest of the team during that time. He’d been specifically banned from waiting in the hangar, told to go get out of his armour and wait somewhere else for their return, but Niner had promised to send him an alert on his communicator when the Pelican came in. So he was sat waiting in his room with his chewing aid in his mouth, the only thing stopping him from chewing through his cheek with worry, when she did so after that half an hour had passed.

He nearly fell off of the bed as he scrambled to grab the communicator, opening the alert Niner had sent him and flicking his eyes across the words quickly. At first he was filled with relief, the Pelican had come back and hadn’t been blown out of the goddamn  _sky_  or something, but then he read the last line:

_Maine is being taken down to medical. Big guy is injured pretty badly._

Biting down hard on the head of the cat shaped aid he threw the communicator away to his side and jumped off of the bed, sprinting out of the door on sock covered feet at full speed. The hangar was much closer to the medical bay than their quarters were, and they definitely had a few minutes head start, but that just meant he had to run faster. He had to see what had happened. He had to find out what had happened.

He almost ran into a wall several times, socks sliding across the metal floor as if it was ice, but he made it down to medical in record time. Medical itself was a hub of activity, and the noise of it assaulted Wash’s ears the moment he set foot inside. He pushed through it, though. He pushed through it and ran deeper to find the others.

The first thing he caught sight of was the bright aqua of Carolina’s armour, hidden deep in the last section of medical – the section that lead to surgery. He cursed under his breath; he should have expected that he’d need surgery after Niner’s message, but it only truly hit him in that moment.

“C-Carolina!” He called out, gasping for air as the running caught up to him.

Carolina turned around, and Wash couldn’t help but think that she looked an absolute mess. Her red hair was falling out of its ponytail; her lip was busted; she was grasping her ribs; and she looked about ready to collapse. When she saw him she didn’t say anything for a long moment, and when she did go to open her mouth York interjected. Wash hadn’t even noticed York was there.

“Wash, I was just about to send you an alert,” He said, holding up his communicator, “How did you know to come down?”

“Four-Seven. F-Four-Seven sent me one. She was… she was waiting for you to come back to tell me,” Wash said, panting for breath and leaning against the edge of one of the beds. Carolina nodded vaguely, whilst York sighed and gave a more confident nod.

“Right, that makes sense. You okay?” He asked, stepping around Carolina to stand more directly in front of him.

Wash nodded, still panting, “Yeah. Yeah I’m good. No injuries spare a few bruises. I’m  _super_. I’m more worried about Maine.”

“Right, of course.”

“What  _happened_? What’s wrong? What went on after I got carted back here by Four-Seven?” He asked, gripping the end of the bed in a tight fist. He’d left his chew on the floor in his room in his rush, so his teeth returned to assaulting his cheek. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. Not right now.

This time it was York who opened his mouth, only to be interrupted, “One of the insurrectionists put upwards of nine bullets in his throat.”

Carolina’s words were frank, and whilst Wash felt the shock rattle through him he appreciated the brevity of them. He sucked in a hard breath, shaking his head. No way.  _Nine bullets_? His  _throat_?!

“He got right back up again afterwards, too,” Carolina said, a hint in her tone that suggested this was meant to be reassuring information. Wash appreciated the effort, but the shock of the first statement had yet to leave him, “Kept fighting. Ended up being thrown over the road’s barrier by a truck, on top of everything else…”

Each word started to feel like a bullet wound in Wash’s throat instead.

“The doctors say they’re sure he’ll survive,” Carolina added again, that reassuring tone a little stronger, but just not strong enough to have any sort of impact. Wash felt himself collapsing, held up only by a tight hold on the end of the bed he leant against, “He’ll just be in surgery for a long time, and will probably have lasting damage. But he’ll survive.”

Wash swallowed hard, his knuckles turning white as he tightened his grip on the bed. He had to stop himself from scratching, from hitting himself, “Lasting damage like  _what_?”

Carolina looked away, “He’ll probably never speak again, Wash.”

“ _Fuck_!” He snapped, gritting his teeth and holding on tighter. His fingers were going numb, “Fuck!  _Fuck_!”

York stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. Wash flinched, nearly jerking away at the shock, but York’s face seemed sincere. He looked like he was going to say something that might reassure him.

And then he opened his mouth: “Don’t worry Wash, it’s not like Maine ever talked all that much anyway.”

In an instant the fear in Washington’s every nerve was replaced with anger, a bubbling, boiling anger that filled every space it could find. His teeth scraped together painfully; his muscles tensed; his knuckles were paper white where his fists were clenched. Contain it.  _Contain it._

And then York clapped his hand over his shoulder. And then Washington spun around. And then his fist connected with York’s nose. And then he had him by the neck against the nearest wall, face level with the other man’s.

York looked positively terrified.

The only thing that stopped him from landing another punch was Carolina grabbing him by the wrist and twisting his arm up behind his back. He gasped in pain, stepping back from York immediately and being pushed down to his knees. He dropped his head, hissing.

“Done?” Carolina said, her voice so close and yet so distant.

Wash’s voice was trembling, his nails digging into his palms, “He… He…!”

“I know,” She said, letting go of his wrist and stepping around him. Washington could only see her legs as he stared at the floor, but from the hisses of pain he could only assume she was checking York over, “Your nose is broken. Go get one of the medics to set it for you.”

“I was just joking,” York said, sounded somehow offended, as if he hadn’t just made the most insensitive comment Wash could ever have dreamed of coming from someone’s mouth, “Trying to lighten the mood!”

“Yes, I know York. But you need to realise how much of an ableist asshole you can sound sometimes. Alright? That was inappropriate,” Carolina said, her tone now lost on him. Everything around him seemed to be growing duller, his senses weren’t picking up on things the same way, “Go get a medic to fix your nose. Go on.”

A sigh, and then the sound of armoured feet walking past him and out of the room.

Carolina was crouched down in front of him moments later, worn out eyes meeting worn out eyes and he thought he heard her say ‘come on’, but he wasn’t sure. Everything was getting duller. Her colours didn’t seem as vibrant. Sound seemed to be coming through thick walls surrounding him from every angle. Even the feeling of her hand on his arm, carefully pulling him up to sit on the bed behind him felt as if it wasn’t really there.

He pulled his knees up to his chest, tucking his chin into them and rocking backwards and forwards where he sat. His teeth caught at his cheek again, until Carolina passed him the tank he had given her before. He took it without thought, chewing on it instead of his cheek. He continued rocking back and forth. Everything around him felt like it didn’t exist.

Everything except the sign the read: ‘ZERO GRAVITY SURGERY IN PROCESS’.

His eyes wouldn’t leave that sign until Maine came out of surgery hours later, hours that he waited with the outside world feeling like little more than an echo, but with Carolina by his side.

He’d have to remember to thank her for that, later.

* * *

“How’s your throat feeling?”

The two friends were sat together in one of the MOI’s recreation rooms, much of the rest of their team out on a mission. Though rather than sitting, Washington was laid flat on his stomach on one of the sofas, head on his arms turned to look at Maine who sat on the floor beside him. Maine sat with his legs flat and his arms behind him, his throat wrapped in gauze bandages.

The larger man shrugged, holding up a flat hand with his fingers apart, tapping his thumb against his chest. Then he pointed at Wash; raising his right hand with index finger extended and moving it forward, curling the finger down; finally followed by the same hand turning backwards and moving as if throwing something over his shoulder.

“Yeah yeah, I know I’ve asked already. But I’m worried!” Wash said, his legs swinging up and down alternately to hit against the arm of the sofa, “They said to be wary of complications.”

Maine gave him a look, his first two fingers and thumb of his right hand out and moving across the flat laid palm of the other, before repeating the backwards motion over his shoulder.

“There could still be complications! I’m just worried,” Washington said, giving him a look of his own. And really, he was. Since Maine had come out of surgery he’d been chewing at his cheek so much that he had to attach his cat chew to a piece of cord around his neck to make it more convenient to carry around.

Maine nodded, touching the tips of his flat fingers against his forehead twice. Then he reached over to Wash and ruffled his hair, making Wash scrunch up his face but laugh all the same.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, before Washington spoke up, “I guess it’s a good thing you already used sign language, huh?”

Maine shrugged, opening his mouth as if to speak, but only a gruff growl coming out. He frowned.

Wash’s brows furrowed, “Take it you didn’t mean for that to, uh, be a growl?”

Maine shook his head, trying to speak again on reflex but only repeating the same result. His frown deepened. He tapped his index finger to his ear, then with his hands in fists but indexes outstretched he bumped his hands together twice before finally making claw like hands by his head, with an exaggerated facial expression.

Washington’s face fell. Maine thought he sounded like a monster.

Maine cast his eyes to the floor and Wash considered saying something, but he couldn’t find the right words. Every time he thought he had something that worked he thought it over again; no, that wouldn’t work, and neither would that! He wasn’t good with words, not really. He had no idea how to comfort Maine, and he felt terrible for it.

He watched the larger man in silence for a long moment as he continued to try and think of  _something_  he could say,  _anything_  at all. He pulled his cat chew up from under him and began to bite at it, when a thought came to him.

Purrs sounded kinda like growls, right?

Letting the chew drop down onto the sofa with a quiet thud he laid his head sideways again, watching Maine who was still looking at the floor. Then he let out a soft, rumbling purr. Maine’s head shot up.

Wash smiled at him, purring a little louder. The vibration in his chest felt good, spreading throughout his entire body, and he tried to focus that energy on Maine. On helping Maine, more specifically. He reached out, nudging Maine in the side of the head with a fist, purring more directly at him.

For a moment Maine seemed unsure, but then he let out a soft, deliberate growl. Wash felt a smile spread across his face, purring again in response. The corner of Maine’s lips twitched, another growl reverberating from his chest. Another purr, another growl, and so on and on until Maine was smiling and chuckling between growls.

Wash beamed.

* * *

Wash ducked around another corner, pressing his back against the concrete and keeping an eye on his trackers. He was clear, as far as he could tell. The objective was nearby.

“I all clear from your viewpoint, North?” He whispered into his radio, waiting silently for the response.

“ _All clear from my viewpoint, yup. Have you confirmed York’s position?_ ”

“Nope.”

He heard North’s sigh followed by the muffled sounds of him talking on another channel before he next spoke, “ _York says he’s at his objective, he’s been waiting on you. Are you really still not talking to him, Wash?_ ”

“He hasn’t apologised,” Wash said simply, checking his trackers again and then making a dash for the door up ahead. He typed in the code North had told him that York had re-programmed the system to accept a few minutes ago, and ducked inside before closing the doors behind him. He checked his trackers once more; still nothing.

“ _It’s been over a month and a half, Wash. York just isn’t the type to apologise, not directly. He has tried to make it up to you_.”

Wash sighed, flicking his lower lip with his teeth, “Is this really the time for this conversation North?”

“ _Sorry, sorry. Just think about it, okay? He does feel bad._ ”

He rolled his eyes, turning around to look at the room he’d entered properly, “Yeah yeah, I’ll think about it North. Tell York he can stop whining to you no−  _oh my god_.”

He could practically hear North tense, “ _What is it? Is something wrong?_ ”

Washington didn’t respond, not immediately. His eyes widened as he took in the storage units and wall units around him, every single one of them filled with an assortment of high tech weaponry the likes of which he’d never seen before. His hold on his gun relaxed; he walked up to the nearest rack and examined the weapons in awe.

“These Innies sure have a unique weapons collection…” He mused, hearing North’s half relieved, half annoyed sigh in return.

“ _Wash you scared me half to death._ ”

“Sorry,” Wash said, though he knew it must sound distracted. Right now his focus was almost totally on the vast collection of weapons in front of him, “Oh wow, some of these things…”

And he found himself slipping into long, long run of information on each gun he recognised and the traits he could identify in those he couldn’t. He could list off many of the types of weapon that North probably hadn’t even heard of before they were so specialised, he could detail the functions of at least half of those, and that wasn’t even the beginning of the well of information he felt spilling out. He even felt himself wiggling on his feet, adding to the buzz running through him that only made him want to talk more.

And then he saw that damn bouncing gun, and it began a whole new tirade.

“It bounced! It  _bounced_! What kind of projectile is designed to  _bounce_?” He said, staring at the gun with furrowed brows and a look that could probably set it on fire. If he had superpowers like that, “I mean−”

“ _Hey, Wash?_ ”

“−what use does it have? Who would ever use that? Like−”

“ _Wash, seriously buddy we’ve got hostiles coming from the way you just came. I’m perfectly glad to listen to you, this is all actually very interesting, but only if you can run, kick ass, and speak at the same time_ ,” North said, not giving him even a breath of a chance to interrupt him.

Wash paused, “Oh. Oh! Um, yeah, right, I can totally do that. Um, how many hostiles?”

“ _Ten or so._ ”

“Right. Yeah, I can do that,” He grasped his gun tighter, raising it and backing up towards the next exit. The doors slid open, and Wash began to fire, “Anyway, as I was saying…”

* * *

He grunted, throwing another punch only to have it blocked. And then another punch, and another, throwing them in quick succession leaving no opportunity for him to pause and have a hit thrown back at him, but almost every punch was blocked. Those that weren’t barely seemed to do a thing. So he tried again, with more force but the same results.

Then his fist was inside of another fist, and within seconds he found himself flat on his back, winded.

Washington groaned, gasping for air and pushing himself on his elbows. He looked at Maine upside down, and pulled a face that could only be described as a pout.

“D-Dammit,” He grunted, frowning as Maine grinned down at him, “Oh don’t give me that look!”

Maine chuckled, his right hand bent and his left hand flat, the right moving in an arc to touch his fingers to the other palm, his eyebrow raised. Washington stuck his tongue out.

“You’re too big! No one else I’ve ever had to fight hand to hand is six foot six and built like a goddamn brick wall!” He whined, getting to his feet and rubbing his back, “Thanks for slamming me into the floor, by the way. Really appreciate the constant attempts to break my back.”

Maine rolled his eyes, pointing at Wash and bumping the thumb of a spread hand against his chest.

“I will not be fine if you keep slamming me back first into the floor you big brute,” Wash said, trying to make himself sound stern but the grin on his face no doubt undermining that intention completely. Seeing Maine grinning back he gave up the stern tone, letting himself just sound teasing, “Is it me or have you got more brutal since Sigma?”

He knew he’d said something wrong the moment Maine’s face fell, but he didn’t get a chance to think it over as Maine got into a fighting stance and waving a hand towards himself. Wash frowned at that, making fists and digging his nails into his palms a little. What had he said?

The worry was all but forgotten as they got back into sparring, with Maine still able to block or just take any hit Wash threw at him with no issue at all. The more punches Washington threw that were stopped in their tracks the bigger Maine’s returning grin grew, until he was starting to laugh at Washington’s now comically frustrated face.

Wash didn’t let up his attempts for a moment, “Something funny huh?”

Maine growled softly, and Wash got more flustered as yet another round of hits missed completely. His brows were furrowed and his face was going red, and Maine’s laughter was getting distracting. And just the  _slightest_  bit mocking.

And then Wash had an idea. He tried to mask the grin that formed on his face as he threw more punches, but catching Maine raising an eyebrow he shifted quickly. The punched stopped; he dropped down; and Maine’s legs were swept out from under him.

Wash started saying something as Maine flailed and tumbled onto the floor; it probably would have been a ‘gotcha!’ if Maine hadn’t grabbed his shirt on the way down and pulled him over with him.

Wash would later deny that he let out an embarrassing squeal.

Maine was laughing, only pausing momentarily to let out a huff of air as Wash landed heavily on his gut, and after a moment of indignant huffing Wash started to laugh too. His head dropped against Maine’s chest, whilst Maine’s head flopped back against the floor, both shaking as they laughed. They stayed like that until they were both wheezing from laughter, their cheeks hurting and grins still plastered to their faces when they looked up to see the other.

“Oh my god. We’re ridiculous. We’re trained killers and we just spent ten minutes laughing over falling over,” Wash wheezed, bursting into another round of laughter with his face against Maine, hands over his mouth to try and stop himself. Maine chuckled, ruffling his hair. Wash wrinkled up his face at the gesture, but didn’t shove his hand away, instead enjoying the attention.

Then he let out a meow, and the laughing started again.

* * *

Maine stopped hanging around with him a lot after that.

Now that he thought about it, it had actually been going on a lot longer than he realised. Ever since Maine had gotten Sigma the time they spent together had been getting less and less. First he started training more often, but they still hung around during non-armoured training hours and mandatory ‘team bonding’ time which usually ended up as a movie night, and after hours in their room. Then it was just movie nights and after hours. Then it was just after hours.

Lately it hadn’t even been after hours. Washington was asleep long before Maine came to bed.

At first he was in denial, turning a blind eye to the fact that Maine was spending less and less time with him as the days went by. Then he’d started making excuses, when the others started asking questions and he could no longer pretend it wasn’t going on. Maine just had a lot of training to do, that had to be it! He was just doing more training, he was still spending his free time with him. It was fine!

But then he started wondering. Was Maine actually avoiding him? Had he done something wrong, something that had hurt Maine’s feelings and Maine didn’t feel like he could tell him? Had he said something? Was he just annoying? Had he just become too much of a nuisance? Was he just too  _weird_? With all his cat noises and his wiggling and his chewing and scratching and his meltdowns and everything else… was he just too weird, had Maine finally given up trying to understand him?

No, he told himself. Maine isn’t like that! Maine’s not that kind of person!

And then Maine stopped coming to the movie nights, and his goddamn brain decided it would be a  _great_  idea to pick a fight with him when he went back to their room one night. He yelled at him, Maine signed back angrily and growled in a way he’d never heard outside of the battlefield. Then he’d stormed out and Washington later woke up in one of the maintenance tunnels he and North would find Carolina in, his head aching and his legs covered in bruises.

They apologised to each other, but that was the last time he saw Maine in the room before he fell asleep.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole team was constantly on edge. North and he had found Carolina in the maintenance tunnels much more often recently, especially since Conn−  _CT_  had been lost at the Insurrectionists’ base. South was even angrier than usual, North could no longer simply calm her down when something went wrong. North himself was always tired, as Theta seemed to get more nervous with each passing day and kept him up at night. Nothing was going right anymore. Oh, and he was due to be implanted with his AI.

He wasn’t nearly as excited as he had been before.

“Relax, it’ll all be fine,” York said, still sat at Carolina’s bedside despite the fact it had been well over a week since she went under, “You’ll be in and out in no time, and having an AI really isn’t all that hard to get used to.”

“You’re kinda sitting next to someone who disproves that point, York,” Wash said, swinging his legs as the medics all worked on checking his vitals and preparing him for surgery. He couldn’t deny that he’d been getting worried about if there could be complications with having an AI when your brain wasn’t neurotypical, especially since Carolina’s sudden crash after her implantation. He knew it was probably ridiculous, but he worried all the same.

“Carolina has two AI, and went straight into a fight,” He squeezed her hand as he spoke, sighing softly, “You have one, and will be getting your goddamn assigned bed rest. I will literally still be sitting here and I will make you stay in bed.”

Wash couldn’t help but chuckle a little at that. York annoyed him sometimes, as Carolina had said all those months ago now he really could come out with the most ableist stuff without realising it, but he had gotten better. He had eventually apologised for the comment that got him a punch in the nose (which had, incidentally, left his nose a little bit off centre) and had been a lot better with Carolina’s routines, he’d noticed. So it was kind of nice to have York here, seeing as Maine wasn’t.

He didn’t even know where Maine was right now. He frowned at the thought.

“Alright, if you say so,” He said, smiling a little, “I’m telling you mine is going to be bigger though.”

York started to laugh, echoed by another familiar chuckle from the door. Wash twisted around to look, smiling a little more seeing North had just come in.

“Still going on about the size, hey Wash?” He said, coming over and standing between the two agents, “How you feeling?”

Wash shrugged, “Nervous.”

“That’s understandable, but you’ll be just fine,” North said, in that reassuring tone he always used, “You’ll be in and out in no time.”

“York said the same thing,” Wash said, smiling with a slight nod, “He’s also going to make me stay in bed apparently.”

“I’ll do the same, Wash. We don’t want another Carolina,” North said, and Wash  _thought_  he sounded a little sterner, but his expression hadn’t changed, “Okay?”

“Yeah yeah, okay.”

He sighed a little, flinching as the medics finished up their checks and preparation and had him lay down. He was going in.

“So uh, see you on the other side, I guess,” He said, chuckling awkwardly and waving vaguely at the other two agents. York and North both nodded at him as he was taken through to surgery.

He kept telling himself it would be okay, that they were right, as he was taken in. Of course it would be fine, they’d done this plenty of times and only Carolina’s had gone wrong. And that was only because she’d had two, right? So he’d be completely fine. He’d be out in no time, and maybe he’d have a friend who literally couldn’t leave his side.

With this thought he went into theatre.

He… didn’t remember a lot, after that.

* * *

  
Pain. So much pain. Paths being seared through his brain, cutting who he was up into pieces and haphazardly trying to put it back together again with agonised screams of sorry and how he’s not trying to but he just  _wants it all to be over_ . Allison. Always Allison. Don’t say goodbye. Allison. Allison, she’s dead. Allison, she can’t be dead.  


Don’t say goodbye. Allison.  _I just want it all to be over I’m so sorry I just I didn’t want this I just wanted to forget I wanted it to stop._  Allison. Allison. Memories that weren’t his. So many memories that weren’t his. It hurt, it hurt! It all hurt so much!  _I’m sorry I’m sorry−_

* * *

His eyes flickered open. The bright light hit him and he flinched, raising an arm to shield himself. A groan slipped out, sounding so gruff and broken that he jumped thinking it belonged to someone else. The light stopped hurting enough for him to open his eyes fully and drop his arm, and he took in the sight of the room around him.

Medical. He was in medical. Huh.

His vision was blurry, distorted. His eyes hurt, aching from more than just the glare of the light. His body was tense and everything hurt. Especially his head. Oh god, his head. It felt like he’d been hit by a car. It felt like he’d been hit by a  _tank_.

When he could finally make out shapes he became aware of someone sitting near his bed. He squinted, trying to make out features. White shirt. Shaved head.

His heart skipped a beat. For a moment, he wondered why. That wasn’t familiar, was it? And then the name ‘Maine’ came to mind, and his heart skipped a beat again. Maine was here. Maine was  _here_.

“M-M… M-Maine…”

Maine’s head shot up, his eyes wide. His eyes  _orange_. Had they always been orange?

“M-Maine… h-hey…” Was swallowed hard, his throat was so dry. It almost hurt to speak. His head ached more with every word, “H-hey the-there…”

Maine was crouched beside his head in what seemed like an instant. Those orange eyes stared at him, one of his large light brown hands reaching out and brushing a strand of hair off his forehead. Wash scrunched up his face, though it hurt his head more.

“W-What’s wrong…?” The pain was swelling at the back of his head. It was all coming from the back of his head. Why was it all coming from the back of his head? “I-Isaac…?”

Maine growled softly, watching him. Wash tried to purr back, but his throat hurt too much to make the sound. Maine frowned, his growl getting harder. He cut himself off.

Wash frowned, reaching out a shaking arm to pat him atop the head. He thought he saw Maine’s lips twitch at that, and he was sure he did when he started to rub his hand in a circle around the top of his head. The feeling of the prickly hairs scratching over his skin sent a calming sensation through him, dulling some of the aches and pains. He did this for what felt like hours, until his arm began to hurt from the motion but he didn’t want to stop. Maine seemed relaxed, crouching there letting him stroke his head just as he used to before. He was  _there_ , he wasn’t running off.

Until suddenly he was standing up, and Wash strained to try and follow.

“M-Maine?”

Maine’s hand closed into a fist with his thumb on the outside, pressing to his chest and circling clockwise twice in a large motion. Then he turned and left, Wash trying to sit up to follow.

“M-Maine! W-Wait! S-Sorry for wha−!”

And then he gasped sharply. And then his head was on fire. And then he could hear himself screaming, but he couldn’t feel it. And then he was on the floor, shivering and gasping and screaming as his hands tore at the back of his neck. And then there were medics. And then everything went black.

* * *

Washington lost the whole two months between his implantation and its removal. It was just gone, deleted with the AI that killed itself in his head. He didn’t remember the surgery, he didn’t remember waking up and screaming multiple times, he didn’t even remember the final snap that made them finally remove the damn thing. All he remembers is pain.

That and the truth about Project Freelancer.

All of this information about the terrible things the Director had been doing behind their backs, and the terrible things he’d made them a part of, was ingrained into his head. But for the next two years, he couldn’t do a thing about it. For the next two years he found himself in a near perpetual state of meltdown, slipping in and out of awareness as Price and various other PFL payroll psychologists tried to figure out what was wrong with him.

That made him angry. They knew what was wrong with him. It was  _their fault_! They  _knew_! Why did they act as if they didn’t know?!

Two years. Two years of viewing the world through the eyes of a meltdown. Two  _years_  of utter hell.

And then he was declared fit for duty.

He was the only agent left they could use, that they thought they could trust. He’d always been the most loyal, he’d always been quick to look over all the things he now recognised that were wrong in the project. He wanted the project to work, he wanted it to be the magic bullet that ended the war. He wanted it to be what he’d hoped it would be. He didn’t want to doubt it. But now, he knew better. He knew what they’d done.

He just also knew better than to let on.

So he did their dirty work. He went around his old friends, destroying their bodies like it was nothing, like he wasn’t constantly on the edge of a meltdown that he just couldn’t let take hold. He pretends nothing bothers him, he even tells himself than none of this bothers him. He does his job. He focuses on his job. He collected information; he found Delta; he destroyed bodies.

Then he slipped. He tried to help South, the first friend he’d seen alive in two years.

He regretted that later. After she shot him in the back.

And then he was locked back up, this time to ‘recover from his injuries’. Price still appeared every other day, and the days he didn’t there was always another psychologist trying to psychoanalyse him. He wondered what they were always writing down; they were always writing something down.

He didn’t snap once that year, but he was always on the edge. Somehow that was worse.

And then he was back on duty. The  _thing_  was back and active, it had attacked a simulation base. He was the only one left, besides South, and no one knew where she was. He was the only one they had left to go after him. He knew he’d never have gotten out of there if he wasn’t. He knew that once he’d taken down the Meta he’d probably never see the light of day again.

He knew what he had to do, he just didn’t know how.

Until he met those simulation troopers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second part! This covers Wash from meeting the Reds and Blues to about the end of season 12 time.
> 
> [Again, here are sign language translations.](http://autisticblueteam.tumblr.com/private/135018075547/tumblr_nz82sdyr9Q1umch04)

Never had Washington met a collection of more incompetent soldiers. Never had he met a bunch of people who could drive him so thoroughly up the wall. Never had he met people so infuriatingly oblivious of the real problem. These sim troopers were the worst people he could ever have had to team up with, but he had no one else. Everyone else was gone.

Even South, now.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He kept reminding himself that all he had to do was get Alpha to command, that he just had  _one more thing_  to do and then this would all be over. The project would no longer exist, it would no longer be able to haunt his every move. He could end this, once and for all. As long as the sim troopers didn’t fuck it up.

And of course, they did.

He was in prison. It was oddly grounding, being in prison; the routines they were forced to stick to were simple, they added a level of predictability to his life he hadn’t had in a long time. It didn’t ‘fix’ him, not the way they wanted it to. He was still constantly on the edge, tiptoeing closer and closer and yet somehow never falling off. He should have snapped by now, he should have broken down. But no, he had nightmares but he didn’t have meltdowns. He screamed and he cried and he clawed at the back of his neck until it  _bled_  but it was never a meltdown. Never.

As time had gone by he resigned himself to the fact he wasn’t going to be let go. He was convicted of crimes that meant he’d probably never see the light of day again, outside the daily hour in the courtyard, despite the fact he had lead them to every piece of information and technology from the elusive project that he could. At least, he thought he had.

Then Caboose called. And then it all made  _sense_.

And then he was angry. He was so,  _fucking_ , angry. It burned him from the inside out and filled him with motivation and kept him that little bit closer to that ever approaching edge. It was the strongest emotion he’d felt in years, overpowering everything else he felt towards those ridiculous troopers. They betrayed him. They did the same thing as so many others before them. They were no better than anyone else who’d turned on him. They didn’t deserve any better than anyone else who’d turned on him.

He shot Donut and Lopez. He took Doc captive. At the time, there wasn’t an ounce of regret in him.

No, what he regretted was teaming up with the Meta.

Not because of what the Meta had done, no. Not because he was a monster. He regretted it because every time he looked at him, he saw Maine. He saw someone who was dead, someone who would never come back. He knew that, he knew better than to think any different, but still he saw Maine.

That hurt. That hurt more than any betrayal.

But he had his mission, he had his objective. That was what he focused on. That was all he had, the only thing that kept him on track. The only thing that kept him from really thinking about what he’d done. The only thing keeping him on the right side of that edge.

And then it all went wrong,  _again_.

He figured he should expect that, by now.

* * *

A month later Washington was staring into his coffee as the brown, almost black, liquid swirled around with the repetitive motion of his spoon. The mug was emblazoned with ‘UNSC’, and the kitchen he was making it in was in a UNSC holding facility. The UNSC holding facility where he and the Reds and Blues were being held, temporarily, whilst their stories were checked out after Sidewinder.

There wasn’t any steam coming from his coffee anymore, and the liquid that splashed up onto his fingers was either stone cold or he was numb to the heat. He wasn’t really sure. It had to be at least three am, and he hadn’t slept at all tonight. He wasn’t thinking straight.

Well, if he was honest with himself, he hadn’t been thinking straight for years. He’d done some things he would never have done if he was in his right mind, of that he was sure. Of that he  _had_  to be sure.

And yet the sim troopers, more specifically the blues, had taken him in.

His grip on the mug tightened, his stirring sped up. He still didn’t know why they’d taken him in; he still didn’t understand why they would do this for him. He’d done nothing to them but hurt them, he was nothing more than another part of the system that had got them into this mess in the first place.

He killed their friends.

Wash gasped as the mug he was holding smashed into pieces in his hand, the sudden sound snapping him to his senses and the hot coffee drenching the exposed skin of his arms and sending burning pain shooting through him. He cursed, shaking his arms to try and get it off of him and clenching his fists, cursing louder as his fingers closed around a section of the broken mug. Blood dripped between his fingers and he threw the shard away, backing away from the counter and hitting the sharp edge of the one behind him.

Fuck. Oh fuck.

He killed their friends. He shot that pink one and that brown one for no reason other than to further his own goals. That was against everything he stood for. That was against every moral he had ever held. You don’t hurt the little guy, you don’t kick the underdog when it’s already down. You take on the big guy, you take on the one who’s in the wrong. You never attack the people beneath you. Never!

“Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh oh oh,” He grabbed the edge of the counter behind him, his knuckles going white as he held on as tight as he could. As if holding on tight would ground him again, would let him forget again. But no, no he’d broken down that wall that was protecting him now.

He killed their friends.

He was the reason Church was gone, again.

He’d killed  _South_. The only other person left who could  _ever_  understand.

He’d killed Maine. Once and for all. There was no going back.

“No. No. No no no no,” He grasped at the counter tighter, clamping his eyes shut and shaking his head. No, no no no. This wasn’t real! These past few years had to have been some nightmare!

Yeah. Yeah that was it. This was all a nightmare. Everything about this was all in his head. He was still in surgery, still waiting to be let out after they implant his AI. None of this was real. That had to be it. That had to be it. This was all some sick nightmare! He’d open his eyes and he’d be in the medical bay of the MOI, with North and York making him stay in bed. With North and York and Carolina and Maine and South and Wyoming and everyone  _alive_.

Washington opened his eyes.

He was still in that kitchen.

“No… No no… No no no no no… NO!” He screamed, slamming his hands against the counter’s edge and gasping at the sharp pain that radiated up his arms. He did it again, and again, and again, and then it wasn’t enough. The pain dulled, it always dulled over time! It always dulled over time!

His hands were in his hair then, clawing at his scalp and tugging at the cropped strands and smearing blood into the blonde. His eyes clamped shut; his knees felt weak; pain filled his every nerve.

Six years of being constantly on the edge. Six years of waiting for the inevitable meltdown.

He fell to the floor. His hair tugged painfully on his scalp. The cuts in his palm burned from the friction. His breathing was sharp and jagged and uneven and he wasn’t getting enough air. His teeth gnashed together and caught at his cheek and blood filled his mouth. It hurt, it all hurt. It all hurt so much. But it wasn’t enough! It wasn’t enough it just wasn’t enough!

His head crashed back against the surface behind him. Over and over and over making pain blossom across the back of his skull and reverberate into the depths of his brain. His fists slammed against his legs over and over and over until he could feel the bruises forming beneath the sweats that offered no protection. Over and over and over and over and−

A gasp, “Church?!”

Washington hissed air in through his teeth. His brain was suddenly alight with pain, shooting through every part of him, searing along familiar paths as memories that weren’t his tried to force their way to the front all at once. Alpha and the Director and Epsilon and Allison! Allison! It always came back to  _Allison_!

“Church! Oh no!”

No no no leave go  _away_! Go  _away_!

He could feel the skin on the back of his head breaking, blood soaking into his hair. His legs were going numb from the constant hits, and his knuckle were becoming raw from the friction. His cheek had stopped bleeding but it  _hurt_ , it  _stung_  and his mouth still tasted like  _iron_  and it was  _disgusting and_ −

“Tucker! Tucker! Church is doing bad things to himself!”

Go  _away_!

“What?” A yawn, “What on earth do you – wait, you mean Washington?”

“He’s hurting himself!”

“What?!”

No, go  _away_!

Blood dribbled down the back of his neck, making him shudder. His hands suddenly stopped thumping at his legs, instead grasping and clawing at the scars that hatched the freckled skin at the base of his skull. Blood caught under his nails as scar tissue broke, but the pain still wasn’t  _enough_ −

“Wash! Holy fuck!”

_Go away!_

And then there were hands wrapping around his arms, tugging them away from his neck. His nails clawed through the battered skin once more before he could no longer reach, and instead he began to struggle violently against the person holding him.

“Wash, no! What the fuck dude?! Caboose, help! You’re stronger than I am!”

“Le-Let go o-of me!” The scream hurt his throat and his ears and his head. He struggled harder, but Tucker’s grip was deceptively strong. His wrists were held tight together in front of him. There was blood dribbling down his back. He began banging his head against the cabinets again.

“Wash goddammit! Caboose, his head!”

Then there were two strong, but comparatively gentle, hands on either side of his head holding it in place. He thrashed and he thrashed but Caboose’s grip held steady. He struggled and he struggled, but Tucker didn’t give an inch; he even went as far as to kneel on his feet when he began to slam them against the floor. So he struggled and thrashed and fought with all his might until his energy fell flat. Until he simply  _couldn’t_  anymore.

“Oh thank god,” Tucker sighed, but his hold didn’t weaken, “We need to get him to bed. Or at least back to the room. He’d bleeding.”

Wash’s head was spinning. He could feel a migraine coming on. He could feel the aches from where he’d hurt himself.

“Wash, hey Wash? Can you hear me dude?”

Wash opened his eyes, coming face to face with Tucker. He flinched away, tearing his eyes away from the other man’s. Then he nodded.

“Can you walk?”

Huh. This felt oddly familiar.

He nodded.

“Are you going to hurt yourself if we let you go?”

He shook his head.

A sigh, “Alright… Caboose, let go of his head.”

The hands on either side of his skull dropped away, and his head slumped against his chest. The hands around his wrists loosened and then fell, and his arms dropped loosely over his knees.

Tucker stood up, and he saw a hand offered to him moments later. He hesitated, then took hold of the hand and shakily pulled himself up to his feet. He nearly fell over, but Tucker caught him.

“Whoa there. C’mon Caboose let’s get him back to his room.”

He limped along between Caboose and Tucker, both men watching his every step as if he was about to collapse. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he did. His head was pounding; his legs were sore and shaky; everything around him was spinning.

“What the hell’s going on out here?” That was a different voice. Grif? Was that Grif?

“Washington had a panic attack or something in the kitchen,” Tucker said from beside him, “Go back to bed Grif. Why are you even awake?”

“I uh, just heard the commotion. Alright, so long as it’s nothing fucking world ending,” And then there was the sound of a door shutting, followed by a sigh from Tucker.

They were back in the blue room soon enough, and Washington dropped to sit on the bed without for a moment taking his eyes off the floor. The throbbing at the back of his neck had gotten worse, and his legs were tender where bruises were starting to form. The pain from his bleeding head wound was barely noticeable over the pain of his headache.

“Caboose, you sit by him whilst I get the medical stuff.”

“Okay.”

Wash sat silently. He was barely aware of the fact his hand, curled into a fist with the thumb on the outside, had begun circling clockwise on his chest. Over and over and over and−

“What are you sorry for, Church?”

Wash blinked. He raised a hand, four fingers up and his thumb tucked to his palm, tapping his index finger against his chin twice; then, after pointing at Caboose, he pointed his index fingers and alternately circled his hands from up to down.

Caboose nodded, “Yeah! I can speak the signing language. I am better at understanding than I am at doing the hands though!”

Wash almost wanted to say something else, his hands hovering in front of his chest, but then Tucker returned with the first aid kit. His hands dropped to his lap, and he sat still to let Tucker clean the blood away from his wounds.

“Wow, you really did a number on yourself…” Tucker mumbled whilst cleaning the wound on the back of his head, “Wouldn’t be surprised if you gave yourself a concussion or some shit.”

Wash shrugged a little at that. Wouldn’t be his first.

“Dude, you okay?”

Wash gave him a look.

Tucker chuckled awkwardly, “…Okay, that was a bit of a dumb question, but still. That was… intense.”

The ex-freelancer sighed, raising a flat hand and moving it forward in a slicing motion in the air at the side of his head, followed by tapping the thumb of a spread hand to his chest.

Tucker blinked, “Uh…”

“He said he will be fine,” Caboose said, nodding, “He used the sign for ‘future’ and for ‘fine’!”

“Oh. Wait, you speak sign language Caboose? How didn’t I know that?” Tucker said, raising an eyebrow. Wash glanced between them.

Caboose shrugged, “You never asked!”

“…Right.”

They fell into silence as Tucker finished cleaning Wash’s injuries, taping a bandage pad over his neck and head wounds and rubbing something onto his bruised legs to help them heal faster too. Wash had to give it to him, Tucker almost knew what he was doing.

“Alright, I’m going to go clean up the mess in the kitchen. Washington, sleep. Or… whatever you gotta do,” The aqua soldier said after he finished, putting the kit away and waving a hand. He walked out of the room moments later, and Wash sighed before laying down.

Well. That was… something.

“Are you going to be okay, Church?”

The name shot pain through his head again, but it faded quickly. Wash turned his head to see Caboose knelt at the side of his bed, a worried expression on his face. Wash nodded, if only to try and make the soldier feel a little better.

“Are you sure?”

Wash nodded again, turning onto his side so he was facing Caboose fully. He gave the most honest look he could muster, or at least he hoped that was how it came across.

“Meltdowns are not very nice are they Church?”

Wash shook his head, only moments later registering what Caboose had called it. Meltdown, not panic attack like Tucker. Meltdown specifically.

 _Oh_.

He shook his head.

“Do you have any of the things that make you feel better? I like playing with people’s hair. And I let other Church play with mine! And I do a flappy thing. It feels nice,” Caboose said, in that same tone that was just so simple and relaxed. It almost made him feel a little better. Almost.

He nodded.

“Like what?”

He shrugged a little, absent-mindedly reaching out a hand and brushing his fingers across the stubble on Caboose’s jaw. Caboose tilted his head at the motion, but didn’t jerk away. In fact he shuffled closer to the bed, letting Washington run his fingers over the stubble without complaint.

The familiar tickling sensation felt nice, and slowly but surely Wash felt himself beginning to dose off.

That was definitely something.

* * *

Wash started feeling oddly more comfortable, after that. Tucker and Caboose had shown genuine care that night, and whilst their antics were more than a little annoying the rest of the time, and Tucker still seemed to resent him every other day, it was easy to slip into some kind of pattern with them.

A pattern that, within a day of them being let out of the holding facility, was utterly destroyed by the reappearance of Carolina.

Carolina. Carolina who was thrown off the very same cliff they’d thrown Maine off only a month ago. Carolina who should be dead. Carolina who wanted to kill the Director.

Wash had expected the sim troopers to refuse to help her, but the mention of retrieving Epsilon had Caboose so  _happy_  that no one could bear to actually say no. It was no secret that Caboose had been calling Washington ‘Church’, or that he’d been having his own nightmares. The team simply couldn’t deny him the opportunity, so… Wash followed along.

It was interesting, he had to admit, how quickly he fell back into following Carolina’s every order. He wondered how much he’d needed routine in his life to be so easily ordered around again, but he let it continue because it was easier this way.

As the days went on they never seemed any closer to finding the base where Epsilon was taken, and Carolina grew more frustrated. He recognised the behaviour, he knew it was how he’d been acting for years; she was working on the edge of a meltdown, focused on her goal but always one wrong move from toppling over that edge. He wanted to help, but she wasn’t open to it. So he didn’t push the issue.

They’d been on the hunt for nearly six months before he finally felt he had to say something. One night as they camped out in the vehicles and the two ex-freelancers were on guard, he spoke up.

“Carolina. You have to stop this.”

Carolina didn’t look at him. Her head was slightly lowered to the ground, her helmet’s shape casting shadows over her visor. It made her look more intimidating, somehow.

“Stop what, Washington?”

“This. All of this. We’re on a wild goose chase, Carolina. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever find Epsilon, let alone that we’ll ever be able to get him out of the memory unit, and even then there’s a chance he won’t know a thing about the Director’s whereabouts,” He said, not letting Carolina interrupt him, “I want the guy to pay for what he’s done just as much as you do, but you have to think about this rationally.”

“You don’t, Washington. No one wants him to pay as much as I do.”

“I’m just saying, Carolina−”

“Church? Church?!”

Wash stopped mid-sentence, tilting his head. Carolina froze, seemingly just as confused as he was by the sudden exclamation from behind them, and the two turned around almost in unison.

Back at their makeshift camp nothing seemed different, everyone was still asleep. Grif was slumped back in the driver’s seat of one Warthog with Simmons leaning against his shoulder; Sarge was asleep sitting by the wheels with his trusty shotgun in hand; Tucker was asleep lazed out over both seats of the other car; and Caboose was sleeping against the wheels of said other car. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; that is until Caboose’s voice rang out again and he rolled onto his side.

“No no! Please do not hurt them!”

Wash frowned, “…Caboose?”

He started to walk over, Carolina hanging back, heading to Caboose step by step. By now the others were stirring too; Grif opened his eyes and yawned first, shortly followed by Tucker who groaned and twisted to see what was going on.

“Caboose buddy?” He asked through a yawn, sitting up, “Hey, Caboose, you okay?”

There was silence spare the sound of armoured feet scuffing dirt as Caboose pushed himself to his feet, looking around alarmed. He was awake, his eyes were wide open. But he seemed unsure of his surroundings, and there were tears in his eyes.

Wash recognised the signs in an instant, and it looked like Tucker did too.

“Hey, hey. Caboose? Caboose look at me,” The aqua soldier said, his voice calm and soft. Caboose turned his head, looking at him, and Tucker smiled, “Hey, Caboose−”

And then Caboose flipped the Warthog.

“WHERE IS CHURCH?!”

Tucker let out a startled scream as the Warthog turned over on top of him, ducking into a ball and barely keeping himself from being crushed by keeping himself in the dip of the seats. Grif jumped so hard that Simmons woke up, and the sudden crash did the job of waking up Sarge.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on?!” Sarge yelled, his shotgun up and his body tense. Then he saw, “Son of a−”

Washington’s eyes were wide, seeing the hurt and anger on Caboose’s face as tears flowed from his eyes and he turned from the upturned Warthog. He was shaking, and he looked just as scared as he did angry.

“Where is Church?!”

“Caboose−” He stepped towards him, one step at a time and with his hands in the air, “Caboose, we’re looking for Church, remember?”

Caboose’s expression didn’t change, and now his fists were clenched. Wash had never seen him like this. He was trying to stay calm, but even he could feel fear building up in his chest. His teeth tugged at his cheek. Caboose was strong. Caboose was very strong.

“Where is Church?!”

He was close to him now, within touching distance. He stopped there, looking up at him, “Caboose, buddy−” Then he heard a gun click behind him, and he turned his head over his shoulder, “Carolina don’t you da−”

And then he was winded by a large body tackling him, throwing him into the rock wall nearby. And then he was gasping in pain as he hit his head, denting his helmet, and he felt dizzy. And then he was on the floor. And then he heard a commotion, and the sound of crying.

He blinked until the double-vision faded and the multiple blurs of colour became more easily recognisable. Caboose was on the floor, his head in his hands and sobbing as he tugged at his hair. Sarge and Grif were trying to pull the Warthog off Tucker. Simmons was knelt by Caboose, trying to calm him down. Carolina was stood with a gun aimed at Caboose’s head, which if anything seemed to be making Caboose cry more.

“Caboose, hey. Caboose calm down. Caboose, it’s okay,” Simmons was saying, he thought. His head was still ringing.

“Has he done this before?” Carolina was asking, her gun never dropping an inch, “Private Simmons, has he done this  _before_?!”

“No! He’s never done this before!” Simmons said, half panicked half angry, “Stop aiming that gun at him!”

“He just assaulted Agent Washington. I will not stop until I am sure he is no longer a threat!” Carolina snapped.

Wash shook his head, forcing himself to his feet.

“Carolina, s-stop,” He gasped out, feeling the pain in his back as he moved. Fuck, that hurt. Oh that really hurt, “Caboose has never done anything like that before.”

“Well he did it now!”

He swallowed hard, limping over to them and grabbing the gun from Carolina’s hand, “Carolina, he’s having a  _meltdown_ , can’t you see that?”

“That is no excuse!”

“ _Carolina_ ,” He tore off his helmet to glare at her, and then tossing the gun away he crouched down in front of Caboose. There were still tears in his eyes; he looked utterly distraught, “Caboose, Caboose hey.”

Caboose whimpered.

“Caboose, it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. It’s alright,” He made his voice as gentle as he could, trying a smile. He wasn’t sure if it was very convincing, but he had to try, “Caboose, can you look at me?”

Simmons watched in seeming awe as Caboose looked up, focusing in on Washington’s face. Wash nodded, noticing he didn’t connect eyes, and smiled a little more.

“Hey buddy.”

“H-Hello.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Caboose nodded.

“Did it make you scared?” He didn’t know where this was coming from. He’d never had to do this for someone else before. He’d never had to bring someone back up.

Caboose nodded again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Was he doing this right?

Caboose shook his head.

“Alright. Hey, you said you like your hair being played with, right? Would you like me to try?” Was he doing any of this right?

Caboose hesitated this time, but then he nodded.

Wash sighed, relieved, “Okay. Okay. Simmons, go help the others. Caboose, buddy, come here.”

Caboose shuffled closer as Washington sat himself down, his legs out flat. Caboose sniffled, hesitating again, before laying so his head was on Wash’s lap. Wash tensed momentarily at the contact, but then taking off his glove he laced his fingers into Caboose’s hair. Caboose relaxed almost instantly.

Carolina was watching them dumbstruck, if her frozen position was anything to go by. Wash threw her a look, and she seemed startled before she went to help move the Warthog too. He didn’t look, but he heard it turn back over and Tucker assuring everyone he was okay moments later.

For now he focused on Caboose, who was now so vulnerable in his lap.

This had to be over soon. None of them could handle this for much longer, he just knew it.

* * *

It had taken another five months to find Epsilon and set him free. It had taken them at least another six to find the Director after that. It was rough, it had all been rough; relationships were strained and both Epsilon and Carolina had said things they had regretted over that time. Washington saw himself in Carolina at every turn, the way she tried to hold onto the past whilst simultaneously trying to destroy it; the way she refused to realise she was in the wrong. He wasn’t  _proud_  that he’d put a gun to her head, but at the time, he had to do it.

She did better, after it was over. She asked to come with them to Blood Gulch, to find a home with this group of strange soldiers who shouldn’t be as lucky as they were in a fight. He saw that she’d seen what he’d seen in them, and he was glad of it. He even helped her through that inevitable meltdown, the meltdown that came after years of holding it back. Everything seemed like it was going to get better.

Then they crashed, and she and Epsilon disappeared. That hadn’t been easy, but he’d understood when she returned. She apologised, that he was grateful for. Things were in a constant state of change, and both of them were just struggling to keep up.

But they were trying.

* * *

Washington sighed, flicking his data-pad onto another file and biting down on his chew harder. They’d been in Armonia less than a month and things were chaotic, the armies still not trusting each other and no one sure when the mercenaries were going to come back to finish them off. Washington had been in charge of training regimes for both the Feds and the News, and he’d been splitting up fights almost daily.

He never thought he’d be saying so, but dealing with the Reds and Blues with their lieutenants was the easiest part of his day.

He shook his head with a slight chuckle at the thought, chewing on his cat chew and flicking onto yet another file.

He had his own room now, something he was grateful for as he sat planning training regime after training regime. If he’d had to share with his fellow blues he was honestly sure he’d have never gotten anything done, at all. They had never been the easiest roommates to have, and right now he needed all the quiet he could get.

“Hey, Wash?”

However that didn’t mean he never got visitors.

Wash sighed, turning to Tucker without removing the chew from his mouth, “What, Tucker?”

“Just wondering if you’re coming down to the mess hall anytime so− …What’ve you got in your mouth?” Tucker said, doing a double take and raising an eyebrow. Wash tensed, cursing under his breath.

Oh. Oh shit.

Tucker stared for a moment longer, and then started to laugh, “Is… is that thing shaped like a fucking  _cat_?”

Wash blinked. Well, that wasn’t  _exactly_  the comment he was expecting.

“Um. Yes. Yes it is,” He said, clearing his throat and swallowing hard. He pulled the chew out of his mouth, holding it up, “It is shaped like a cat. Is there a problem with that Tucker?”

Tucker was near doubled over laughing, his dreadlocks falling into his face, but he shook his head. Wash raised an eyebrow, though he could feel himself smiling too.

“Really Tucker? Because you’re laughing. Quite obnoxiously, might I add.”

“Oh shut up, it’s funny! The big tough paranoid ex-special ops guy… likes cats. Like, I knew this before. I knew this. You fucking meowed once. You have pictures of your cats. But it’s just hit me how ridiculous this is,” Tucker said between laughs, covering his mouth to try and stop. Washington tried to looked offended, but he was pretty sure he was still smiling, “Like oh my god dude.”

“Laughing at a superior officer, I may just have to make you run more laps tomorrow Captain Tucker,” He teased in return, though it was also very tempting to do just that.

Tucker grinned, rolling his eyes, “Yeah yeah, whatever Wash. I never do the whole run anyway. Now are you coming to the mess hall or not?”

Wash rolled his eyes, locking his data-pad and stretching. His hips may have wiggled a little where they sat, but Tucker either didn’t notice or didn’t care. So he let himself wiggle a little more, “Yes Captain Tucker, I’m coming. Be right there.”

“Alright. If you’re not down in like ten minutes I’m coming back,” Tucker said, giving him a look as he started to leave. Wash chuckled, “I mean it!”

“I know, Tucker. I’ll be there within ten minutes,” He said, giving him his own look in return and watching as he left. He sighed softly, smiling and shaking his head.

Things could be a lot worse than they were. As stressful as his day could get, he felt more comfortable than he had in a very long time. His team was together again, the Reds too, and Carolina and he were solving their issues better than they had before. He was… not optimistic, but not pessimistic for the future.

He knew things weren’t going to stay like this forever, bad things were coming, but he would enjoy it whilst it lasted.

Besides, what was the worst that could happen?


End file.
